The latest musician riding the photo-sharing bandwagon is Snoop Dogg (aka Snoop Lion), with the launch of an iOS and Android app called Snoopify Sticker Camera.

Snoop worked with retailer Upper Playground, developer 99centbrains and marketing firm Cashmere Agency on the free app, which gets fans to "take photos of your friends or environment and turn them into snoop-themed masterpieces" by adding virtual stickers.

Snoopify isn't trying to compete with existing social networks: it shares images to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, with fans encouraged to add the hashtag #snoopifyapp when posting their pictures, to spread the word. Some stickers are free, while others are sold in 69p packs via in-app purchase.

It's Snoop's second app of 2013, following Snoop Lion Reincarnated: Track Notes App on iPad, which offered clips and background information on his latest album. He's also putting his name to a "rhythm-fighting" game called Way of the Dogg, which is launching on iOS, Android, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Snoopify also 99centbrains' second artist-focused photo-sharing app of the year, following its release in April of Major Lazer's Lazergram, which took a similar approach to Snoop's app.

Instagram currently has 100m monthly active users, while Twitter and Facebook are both used heavily for sharing photos. It's no surprise, then, to see stars like Snoop Dogg exploring standalone apps as a way to encourage fans to emblazon their imagery on their shots before sharing.

In fact, Snoop has made a habit of being an early adopter of new digital services and apps that might help him connect to more fans and make money, even if those partners have gone on to have mixed success.

There's arguably more money to be made in 2013 by stars like Snoop Dogg from other kinds of apps than photo-sharing, though.

Witness Trey Songz, whose Trey Songz – The Angel Network app is reportedly generating $54k a month from sales of virtual credits, which fans then spend on sending private messages, customising their profiles and bidding to "get noticed by Trey" by promoting those profiles on the app's "VIP Board".

That app is a partnership between Songz and mobile firm Handmade Mobile, which also runs the popular dating app Flirtomatic – which uses the same model of virtual credits – and launched a now-discontinued Take Me Out Flirting app for ITV as a spin-off from its Take Me Out show.

Meanwhile, if Snoop's people want to sell digital stickers within apps, they might want to have a chat to the publishers of messaging apps like KakaoTalk and Line, which are hugely popular in Asia, keen to expand to the West, and include in-app stores selling virtual stickers.